When he said that, both Tao Zhi and Jiang Qihuai paused at the same time.

There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with his words, yet when he said it like that, it suddenly felt inexplicably awkward.

“Just had breakfast together.” Tao Zhi bounced in place twice, shrinking her neck from the cold. “At that porridge shop in front of the west gate.”

“Oh! The porridge there tastes pretty good, and the rice sausage too.” Li Shuangjiang’s attention was instantly diverted. He waved his hand. “Then I’ll go first, I’ll see if Zhao Mingqi and the others are here yet.”

Tao Zhi watched him run ahead, then let out a breath of relief. From the corner of her eye, she secretly glanced at Jiang Qihuai.

After breakfast, that faint lazy drowsiness around him had already faded away, and he had returned to that usual calm, indifferent look.

Because of that strange, awkward feeling from just now, Tao Zhi didn’t speak to Jiang Qihuai again. The two of them walked silently into the campus and toward the teaching building.

It wasn’t even a quarter past seven, so there weren’t many people in the school yet. Only when they reached the third floor, from a distance down the corridor, Tao Zhi already heard Li Shuangjiang wailing in the classroom.

When she reached the doorway, the classroom was quite full. The group of drunks from yesterday were now all sitting at their desks scribbling furiously. Zhao Mingqi had a pen in each hand, sweating profusely and not even lifting his head.

When he saw Jiang Qihuai come in, he didn’t care about the aloof, unapproachable aura of top-student Jiang anymore. Risking his life, he rushed over and howled, “Huai-ge!”

Jiang Qihuai walked to his desk and looked up.

“Huai-ge, did you do the homework?” Zhao Mingqi looked at him expectantly.

Jiang Qihuai didn’t reply. He simply unzipped his schoolbag, pulled out a thick stack of papers and workbooks for every subject, and handed them over.

Zhao Mingqi let out a cheer, scampered back to his seat, and several people pounced like hungry wolves, crowding around him front and back.

Tao Zhi couldn’t help but laugh when she glanced over. She returned to her seat, unzipped her own bag, thought for a moment, then took out her Chinese homework notebook. Slowly, she groped in her bag for a gel pen.

She opened the notebook, clicked the pen twice, and lowered her head to look at the questions.

It had indeed been a long time since she had truly finished a single subject’s homework on her own.

Tao Zhi didn’t know whether it was because Ji Fan had come, and she felt that as an older sister she couldn’t possibly have worse grades than her younger brother, or because of Jiang Qihuai’s one sentence: “Can’t you just do a single subject’s homework yourself.”

Many people had talked about her grades before. Eventually, even the teachers and Old Tao gave up. Though at their age grades and scores still defined everything, Tao Zhi had never thought there was anything wrong with being the way she was.

She vaguely felt that some subtle change had stirred inside her — the self-esteem about grades that had been sealed away for so long suddenly began to move restlessly.

But Tao Zhi couldn’t find what had caused her to waver.

She was holding her pen, a little lost in thought, when she suddenly felt something lightly tap the top of her head.

Tao Zhi turned her head.

Jiang Qihuai was holding a Chinese workbook above her head. Seeing her turn around, he lowered it slightly, expression blank, and handed it over.

Tao Zhi was stunned for a moment. “What’s this?”

“Chinese.”

Tao Zhi didn’t react for a moment.

Jiang Qihuai said calmly, “Are you copying or not.”

Tao Zhi turned her head to glance at Li Shuangjiang and the others at the far end of the classroom, who were acting like starving wolves fighting over food. “Didn’t you already give them your homework?”

The workbook in Jiang Qihuai’s hand lowered slightly. “You didn’t do your Chinese homework, did you.”

Tao Zhi lowered her eyes, quietly looking at the workbook for a few seconds, then suddenly raised her hand and covered her chest.

Jiang Qihuai looked at her.

“What should I do,” Tao Zhi lifted her head, frowning, “His Highness being so gentle makes my heart flutter.”

Jiang Qihuai: “……”

“Tone it down,” Jiang Qihuai said expressionlessly.

Tao Zhi pouted, lowered her hand, and waved it grandly. “Young master doesn’t want it. Young master’s going to write her own Chinese homework today.”

After saying that, she turned away and began to seriously read the questions.

The first question: Among the following pronunciations of the underlined characters, which one is incorrect?

Tao Zhi: “……”

She looked at the row of obscure characters below, a little torn.

It felt like both a and c were correct.

She scratched at her fingernails, hesitated for a while, then slowly turned around with the workbook in her arms.

Jiang Qihuai was looking at a vocabulary list. Hearing the movement, he raised his eyes toward her, an eyebrow arching slightly.

That expression seemed to say: Weren’t you going to do it yourself?

Tao Zhi cleared her throat, placed the workbook flat on his desk, pointed the pen tip at one of the rare characters she wasn’t sure of, and asked softly, “Is this pronunciation right…”

The corner of Jiang Qihuai’s mouth lifted ever so slightly. “Wrong.”

Tao Zhi let out an “oh,” hesitated for a moment, and then chose option c.

After picking it, she raised her head again to look at him.

“Don’t look at me. Look at the question. Do it yourself,” His Highness said coolly, leaning back in his chair without mercy.

Tao Zhi puffed out her cheeks and moved on to the next question.

Chinese wasn’t quite like subjects such as math or physics—physics was the kind that, if you didn’t listen in class, you really couldn’t understand a thing. But with Chinese, unless your foundation was particularly weak, you could still manage to work through the exercises.

After doing a few questions, Tao Zhi actually got into it.

Jiang Qihuai glanced up.

The girl was leaning sideways over his desk, the end of her pen resting against the tip of her chin. Her long eyelashes drooped low, her lips pressed together lightly, and a few loose strands of her black hair brushed against her pale neck. She looked focused and serious.

When she reached the classical poetry fill-in-the-blank section, she seemed to have not memorized that one. Frowning slightly, she bit at her lower lip in frustration, not writing anything for a long time.

“Yi er che lai, yi wo hui qian (You bring your carriage; I offer my gift in return).” Jiang Qihuai suddenly said. [From the Book of Songs]

Tao Zhi lifted her eyes.

She had a pair of very beautiful eyes—her pupils dark and glossy, her eyelashes thick like small brushes. The shape of her eyes was long and narrow, the outer corners slightly raised, carrying a touch of allure and sharpness.

Yet those black eyes were bright and clear, holding a kind of untainted purity, as if they could cleanse all sins in the world.

Jiang Qihuai looked into those eyes. His voice was low and cool as he said slowly, “You use your carriage to come and marry me, and I’ll bring my dowry to marry you.”

The morning breeze billowed the light-blue curtains. One side of the classroom was noisy and bustling, while the other was utterly quiet.

Tao Zhi felt her heartbeat skip a beat.

They looked at each other, as if a century had passed—yet also as if it had only been a few seconds—before she realized he was merely translating the meaning of that classical verse.

She blinked and wrote down the latter half of the line, one word at a time. But in her mind, the boy’s voice and the meaning of those words kept circling uncontrollably—

——I’ll bring my dowry and marry you.

Her pen paused. The stopped heart began beating again—then faster, louder, wave after wave, surging out of control.

An unexplainable panic welled up in her chest. Tao Zhi felt something was wrong with herself—she needed to stop it, to clear her head.

She chose the method she was best at.

The hand not holding her pen quietly slipped under the desk and jabbed herself in the stomach.

She had eaten a bit too much breakfast, and with that jab, the food in her stomach churned.

“Ugh.” Tao Zhi couldn’t hold back a dry retch.

The silence was instantly broken.

Jiang Qihuai: “……”

Tao Zhi: “……”

By the time Tao Zhi finally finished the Chinese workbook with great effort, Li Shuangjiang and the others on the other side of the room had just finished copying their homework in complete chaos.

Most of the class had already arrived. Li Shuangjiang scampered over, hugged Jiang Qihuai’s homework in his arms to return it, and cupped his hands in mock solemnity: “Huai-ge, your great kindness and virtue—there’s no way we can repay it. Whatever you need in the future, just say the word.”

Before Jiang Qihuai could reply, Tao Zhi turned around with her completed workbook and patted his arm. “Old Wang’s here.”

Li Shuangjiang darted back to his seat at lightning speed.

It was the last day of the weekend, and everyone’s state of mind was a bit lazy. Even during class, their attention and focus had dropped a few notches.

Fu Xiling had slept late the night before and was now propping her chin with one hand, secretly yawning.

Ji Fan didn’t show up at all.

Having finished a whole subject’s homework by her own ability, Tao Zhi felt an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction. The feeling was so rare that it made her happy for the entire morning. Even though she had slept only a few hours, she didn’t feel sleepy at all, sitting through several classes bright and spirited.

During Chinese class, Tao Zhi obediently followed along with the answer key, marking with a red pen.

After every few questions, another line of red appeared, correcting it to the right answer. Even with Jiang Qihuai’s help, her accuracy rate was still far below what she usually got from copying.

As she flipped through the pages, Tao Zhi admired them proudly—she thought, for her, this accuracy was already pretty amazing.

Tao Zhi was very pleased with herself.

As soon as the class bell rang, she hugged her workbook and eagerly turned around, wanting to share it. “Your Highness!”

At almost the same moment, the physics class representative called out, “Huai-ge!”

Tao Zhi stopped mid-sentence. Jiang Qihuai turned his head.

“Old Wang’s looking for you. Seems like it’s about the physics competition,” said the physics rep.

Jiang Qihuai nodded, stood up, and glanced down at Tao Zhi.

Tao Zhi gestured for him to go ahead.

Jiang Qihuai left the classroom.

Tao Zhi turned back around, tapping her fingertip rhythmically on her workbook. But the entire break passed, and even when Wang Er came in with a stack of papers, Jiang Qihuai still hadn’t returned.

Wang Er, one of the famed Wang Twins of Destruction in the lab, was as meticulous as his counterpart Wang Zhezi, never missing a single corner. Standing on the podium, he swept his gaze across the room and called out, “Class monitor.”

Tao Zhi lifted her head.

“Where’s the one sitting behind you?” Wang Er asked.

“Got called away by the physics teacher,” Tao Zhi replied.

Wang Er nodded. “And where’s Ji Fan?”

This kind of situation was all too familiar to Tao Zhi.

When she and Song Jiang were in the same class, they had covered for each other countless times.

“He had diarrhea this morning, got dehydrated, and can’t get up off the floor,” Tao Zhi said calmly, not a flicker of guilt on her face.

Wang Er waved his hand. “Alright, then let’s start class. I looked over your homework yesterday. I noticed most of you did quite well! Zhao Mingqi—where’s that half-right half-wrong momentum of yours? Your accuracy’s too high, afraid others won’t realize you copied, huh? At least make two mistakes on purpose next time.”

Zhao Mingqi scratched his face guiltily.

After Wang Er finished scolding them one by one, Jiang Qihuai came back in through the back door.

Tao Zhi began to feel restless again. She pulled her Chinese workbook out from her desk, ready to turn around and proudly show it off to him—

But then the back door was knocked twice, roughly. Ji Fan walked in, dragging his schoolbag.

After his hangover, his complexion wasn’t great, his expression still dazed. One glance and you could tell he’d only just woken up.

Wang Er turned toward him. “Why didn’t you wait until class was over to come in?”

Ji Fan stood in front, slapped his own face once, and rasped out a crooked lie, “Teacher, my appendix hurts. I just got back from the hospital.”

Wang Er: “……”

Tao Zhi: “……”

Tao Zhi hadn’t expected Ji Fan to show up for this class at all. She had planned to coordinate their story later, but before she could even send him a message, he had walked right in and turned himself into a target.

Wang Er nodded. “Appendicitis, huh.”

Ji Fan also nodded.

“Then did the doctor tell you,” Wang Er continued, “that appendicitis can make you have diarrhea and get dehydrated?”

Ji Fan looked blank. “Probably not?”

Wang Er let out an incredulous laugh, pointed toward the door, and said, “Get out and stand there. When class ends, we’ll have a proper talk.”

Ji Fan, looking completely baffled, walked out.

“Class monitor,” Wang Er called again, “go out and keep him company.”

Tao Zhi: “Me??”

“What do you mean me? Of course I mean you,” Wang Er said. “The two of you sure stick together—sleeping in and covering for each other? Don’t come back in until you’ve figured out whether appendicitis can cause diarrhea.”

“……”

Resigned, Tao Zhi grabbed a notebook, found a pen, and slowly walked out.

Ji Fan was leaning against the wall playing with his phone. When he saw her come out, he grinned. “What’s up with you?”

Tao Zhi looked annoyed. “Why do I have to stand out here with you? You skip class and drag me down too?”

“Then why did you leave by yourself this morning?” Ji Fan said. “You ditched me and came on your own. I haven’t even complained yet.”

Tao Zhi couldn’t be bothered to argue. She was in a good mood today; even being dragged out to stand as punishment didn’t dampen her spirits.

She went to stand off to the side, leaned against the wall, and pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket, then sent Jiang Qihuai several messages in a row.

The top student never checked his phone during class. After waiting a while with no reply, Tao Zhi took out her notebook, flipped it open on the window ledge, and raised her head to start writing quickly.

The lab classroom shared a wall with the corridor and had windows as well—one near the front and one near the back. They were usually used by Wang Zhezi to secretly spy on whether students in other classes were paying attention or playing on their phones.

The back window happened to line up exactly with where Jiang Qihuai and Ji Fan sat.

Tao Zhi pressed against the glass and wrote for a while, then thwap—lightly slapped her notebook against the window, making a faint sound.

Fu Xiling heard it, lifted her head to glance over, then quietly tapped Jiang Qihuai’s desk.

Jiang Qihuai looked up.

Fu Xiling pointed upward.

Jiang Qihuai raised his eyes and saw Tao Zhi with her head pressed against the notebook. On the page, written thickly with a gel pen—so bold she’d gone over the strokes several times—were two big characters: Your Highness! (殿下!)

Jiang Qihuai: “……”

Tao Zhi waited five seconds, lowered the notebook, saw that he was looking, then bowed her head to write again and pressed it back against the window.

——I’m so happy!

Tao Zhi pulled the notebook down again to write more.

The window was a bit high, so it was hard for her to reach. Holding the notebook up made her arms sore, and she used her face to prop it, the wide double-page notebook almost completely covering her face.

——I only got nineteen questions wrong in Chinese!!

Jiang Qihuai couldn’t help the slight curve that tugged at the corner of his lips.

Tao Zhi pulled her notebook down for the fourth time and started writing something new.

Wang Er finally noticed the movement over there. He continued lecturing as if nothing had happened, but with his book in hand, he began walking slowly toward that side.

Jiang Qihuai caught a glimpse of him from the corner of his eye, turned his head away from the window, and lowered his gaze to his textbook again.

But Tao Zhi didn’t know. She didn’t look inside—only heard Wang Er’s voice still lecturing and assumed everything was fine.

After writing another line, she pressed her notebook against the glass once more.

By then, Wang Er had already reached Jiang Qihuai’s desk.

Outside the window, the girl leaned her forehead against the notebook. On it, after the words “Look at your phone”, she had drawn three enormous exclamation marks. Even the strokes radiated joy.

Wang Er’s voice stopped.

Tao Zhi waited for a while, realizing that the sound of teaching inside the classroom had gone silent.

Two eyes peeked out from above her notebook, curious, glancing inside.

Wang Er, holding his book in one hand, reached out and tapped the corner of Jiang Qihuai’s desk with the other. “Jiang Qihuai.”

Jiang Qihuai sighed and lifted his head.

“Your colleague outside is asking you to check your phone,” Wang Er said kindly.